Hong Kong reports 12 deaths from SARS in a single day

CaptionUnder quarantine

AP/CP, Kevin Frayer

Under quarantineTushar Basu, a student at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy, talks on the phone as he sits in his house under quarantine in Markham, Ontario, Canada, on May 28. Seventeen hundred students from the school have been ordered to quarantine themselves after a schoolmate was diagnosed with SARS.

Under quarantineTushar Basu, a student at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy, talks on the phone as he sits in his house under quarantine in Markham, Ontario, Canada, on May 28. Seventeen hundred students from the school have been ordered to quarantine themselves after a schoolmate was diagnosed with SARS. (AP/CP, Kevin Frayer)

A Malaysian woman stands next to a magazine billboard showing former Communist party leader Mao Zedong wearing a mask, at a bookstand in Kuala Lumpur on May 27. Malaysia has reported two deaths and five probable cases of SARS.

A Malaysian woman stands next to a magazine billboard showing former Communist party leader Mao Zedong wearing a mask, at a bookstand in Kuala Lumpur on May 27. Malaysia has reported two deaths and five probable cases of SARS. (AP/Teh Eng Koon)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong reported a record 12 deaths in a single day from severe acute respiratory syndrome yesterday, while Singapore's leader warned that the outbreak could become the worst economic crisis his city-state has ever faced.

The concern over SARS is so strong that Vietnam was considering closing its border with China, where the disease is believed to have originated.

The global death toll hit at least 185, with about 3,000 people infected.

Hong Kong had 81 of those deaths - or about 44 percent - and was becoming the global epicenter for the disease, for which there is no proven cure.

Critics wonder whether mainland China was covering up information about the disease because it has reported just 67 SARS-related deaths. Premier Wen Jiabao demanded timely and honest reporting of SARS cases after China was accused of hiding the real number of infections within its borders.

"Anyone who covers up SARS cases or delays the release of information will be harshly punished," Wen was quoted as saying in yesterday's China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper.

Singapore's prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, said yesterday that the outbreak could be devastating for the economy. He also announced tough new measures to try to contain SARS, including prison sentences for people who defy quarantine orders.

"SARS will knock you backward, it may even kill you, but I can tell you SARS can kill the economy, and all of us will be killed by the collapsing economy," he said.

Hong Kong tried to calm its 6.8 million residents yesterday by launching a cleanup campaign also intended to reassure international companies that the territory is a safe place to do business.

The Hong Kong health secretary, Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, put on rubber gloves to stir up a mixture of water and bleach - which can kill the SARS virus - and then started scrubbing the floor of a downtown vegetable market.

"Personal hygiene and environmental hygiene are two important objectives," Yeoh said.

One surprised stall owner said she saw Yeoh many times on television during the SARS crisis but the mop-wielding health chief looked skinny in person - perhaps from working too hard.

Yeoh wore no surgical mask as he cleaned the floor, and then used rags to wipe the sides of an escalator. Many others in the cleanup crew were masked, hoping to avoid SARS.

But after putting on its best public face, Hong Kong later reported 31 new SARS cases yesterday, for a total of 1,358. The 12 new deaths were a daily record in Hong Kong, but officials tried to emphasize that far more patients were recovering than dying, with another 41 people discharged. That increases the number of people released in Hong Kong after being diagnosed to 363.

Throughout hard-hit parts of Asia, and places trying to avoid the illness entirely, the fight against SARS escalated.

Vietnam was considering closing its 830-mile northern border with China because of the deadly disease, state-controlled media reported. The Ministry of Health also proposed that visitors from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Canada obtain health certificates showing they are free of SARS to enter Vietnam, it said.

Five medical workers have died of SARS in Vietnam, where more than 60 SARS cases have been reported.

Air India decided to suspend flights to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia starting tomorrow because the pilots' union fears the SARS virus, reports said.

Thailand, which previously required all visitors to wear surgical masks, claimed it had the illness under control.

Meanwhile, a male flight attendant who worked on an April 15 Cathay Pacific flight from Singapore to Hong Kong was confirmed to have SARS.

The government urged passengers on that flight to contact health authorities. The flight attendant is in stable condition at a Hong Kong hospital.